Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure and honour for me to participate in the debate on Bill C-44, implementing the principal measures of the budget that was tabled a few weeks ago by the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, we must stand proud and state in no uncertain terms that it is a bad budget. We will have occasion to return to this in greater detail, but I also want to point out that Bill C-44 is an omnibus bill.
This means that, among the measures to implement the budget's financial program, the government has decided to insert, in not so subtle a fashion, measures which have literally nothing to do with the speech made by the finance minister here in the House at 4:15 p.m. on March 22. There was no mention in that speech of the infrastructure bank, Investment Canada or judges’ salaries, along with many other measures to be found in Bill C-44. We will have occasion to get back to this a little later.
To begin, I want to follow up on certain statements made by the minister in the speech he just made. He raised certain points, but forgot the most important ones.
First of all, let us address the much-talked-about tax changes. The government is always passing itself off as a Robin Hood that will take money away from the wealthiest 1% and give it back to the middle class, and so on and so forth.
Thanks to the initiative of Senator Larry Smith, we have managed to get to the facts with the help of the parliamentary budget officer. It appears that 65% of Canadians will see absolutely no change to their income tax, including those who earn $45,000 or less per year, who are the real middle class. Those earning $60,000 a year will get barely two dollars more per week, just enough to buy a weekly coffee at Tim Hortons.
However, those who will really benefit from these changes which will supposedly make Canada a fairer country and help the middle class will be those who earn between $140,000 and $200,000 a year. Are they the middle class? No, they are among the most well off in Canada, and this government, with its budget, prefers to give more to the wealthy rather than help those who earn $45,000 or less, that is, the least fortunate among us. That is what the minister forgot to say.
It is the same thing for the changes to family assistance. Earlier, in response to the question from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who is always eager to say lots of things in the House and whom I salute and like very much, we were talking about the changes to family assistance. Let us remember that when those changes were introduced, over a year ago now, the Minister of Families forgot one little detail, which was to index those changes. If the government had not run the numbers again, once we pointed out this omission, taxpayers in 2020 would have had less money in their pockets. That was totally unacceptable.
Was that a minor error? Yes, of course. Any accountant in any business who forgets to index prices or the budgets he draws up would be fired on the spot, and yet this government is keeping on the very people responsible for this gross miscalculation. Certain estimates suggest that this could have cost the consolidated revenue fund $20 billion over the years ahead.
The minister began by saying how generous his government was with respect to pension funds. In truth, it was a mistake for the government to bring the age of retirement back to 65. That mistake is highlighted once again in the report on Canadian demographics tabled a little earlier today. According to this report, for the first time, there are going to be more seniors than people in the labour force. The courageous and urgent thing to do was to push the retirement age back to 67. In setting it at 65, the government is playing petty politics.
At another time, when the current finance minister was an accomplished businessman, one held in respect and esteem, he himself authored a book on the subject of retirement management.
What did the current finance minister say when he was free to speak before becoming a Liberal minister? He said that 67 as the retirement age was a good idea. What did he do once he got elected? He brought it back to 65. That was not the thing to do. The demographic data tabled this morning tells us that pushing back the age of retirement to 67 was the necessary and urgent thing to do; perhaps not the most politically expedient move, but ever so helpful for the future of the country.
How is the Canada pension plan going to be funded, then? It will be funded by increases in premiums. Every worker will have to pay $1,000 more, and every business will have to pay $1,000 more for each of its workers. That makes $1,000 on each side. The government will look for $2,000 more to balance the pension plan. Wonderful, terrific, because that will cost Canadians even more. It will mean that much less money in the pockets of taxpayers to keep the economy rolling.
These were the first points I wanted to raise following the speech by the finance minister, for whom, as I said earlier, I have much respect and esteem.
Now let us talk about the budget, which was tabled by the government on March 22 in the House of Commons.
This is a bad budget and the worst-case scenario for our young generation, the youth of Canada. We are talking about debt and deficit. Just this year, the government tabled a budget with a deficit of $28.5 billion. Let me remind members that based on the platform of the Liberal Party in the last election, page 64 talked about a “modest” deficit, a “small” deficit of around $10 billion a year, getting back to a zero deficit in 2019. It is like Alice in Wonderland.
What is the reality? The reality is that last year we had a deficit of $23 billion, to which we shall add the $6 billion cushion that the government had in the budget, which it used to reduce the deficit. Therefore, we are talking about a real deficit of $29 billion, and this year of $28.5 billion. This is what the government is giving the young generation, which is all wrong for the so-called millennials.
Worse than that, where is the plan to get back to a zero deficit? The Liberal Party platform talked about a zero deficit in 2019. Where is the zero deficit plan?